Many scholars of hip-hip studies argue for the empowering effect it can have upon young people. As part of the International Hip Hop Studies Conference at the University of Cambridge, a one-day festival was held bringing together researchers, academics, hip hop artists and youth workers. The festival allowed youth workers to see how the research being undertaken within academia could be relevant to their professional practice and how it could have a lasting influence on the young people they work with.

Designing Our Tomorrow (DOT) is a joint initiative between the Faculty of Education and the Department of Engineering to research, develop and deliver teaching resources for Design and Technology for 11 to 18 year olds. This project developed CPD resources for teachers and training materials in partnership with Peter Brett Associates and ARM. A workshop was held with two design & technology teachers and two science teachers to explore cross curricular work. This resulted in a number of key insights and the development of strategies.

Dr Alex Jeffrey, Department of Geography, organised three interdisciplinary workshops, which took place between July 2016 and January 2017, to explore different perspectives on current changes to courts, focusing in particular on courts as physical environments that provoke different responses from their varied users including defendants, lawyers, judges and the wider public. The workshops helped to articulate that courts are not simply sites of trial justice, but also focal points for social understandings of justice. For this reason the legal system should avoid extending criminal punishment into the court space and adopt greater flexibility in relation to security measures and new technologies. Dr Jeffrey is planning to feed these recommendations into the Ministry of Justice’s discussion concerning the sale of the UK Court Estate.

Jamie Anderson completed a PhD in the Department of Architecture on how design factors in the built environment impacts on residents' well being. Jamie then undertook an EPSRC-IAA Knowledge Transfer Fellowship with Buro Happold, an international consultancy firm. During the Fellowship, Jamie disseminated the knowledge from his PhD throughout the company and applied it to a number of different urban planning projects. This has helped the company to win a number of new contracts. Jamie has now been employed by the company to continue this work.